Certain basic modeling skills can be applied to a wide variety of problems. It focuses on those mathematical techniques which are applicable to models involving differential equations. Models in three different areas are considered: growth and decay process, interacting populations and heating/cooling problems. The main mathematical technique is solving differential equations, while the range of applications and mathematical techniques presented provides a broad appreciation of this type of modeling. This book contains three general sections: Compartmental Models, Population Models and Heat Transfer Models. Within each section, the process of constructing a model is presented in full detail. Applications and case studies are integral to this text, and case studies are included throughout. This is a useful course text, and basic calculus and fundamental computing skills are required.

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About the Author:

Belinda Barnes is at Australian National University in Canberra and Glenn Fulford is at the University of New South Wales in Canberra.

Review:

"The book is written in a very lucid manner, with numerous case studies and examples thoroughly discussed. The material is very well organized, generously illustrated, and delightfully presented. All chapters, except the first one, conclude with scores of nicely designed exercises that can be used for independent study. The book contains enough material to organize a new well-structured one-semester course or to complement the existing one with additional examples and problems and is highly recommended for either purpose"―Zentralblatt MATH, 1168

"... The book can be useful for students of mathematical modeling. They will find many skills for modeling and solving real problems. Useful sheets for Maple and MATLAB are included for numerical solution. The most important feature of the book is that it contains many real-life examples. ... The main examples are solved in detail and the others are left for the reader. This is the best treasury of real case problems seen in a single book."―EMS Newsletter, September 2009